THHINK of the Future: Markets
Energy
harvesting is an emerging technology and products in this sector are being driven
by emerging applications.
The
number of applications that can be powered by some form of energy harvesting
technology is growing as electronics is becoming more efficient and using less
power.
Market
projections are predicting billions of dollars in revenue for ubiquitous sensor
networks in the next five to ten years – energy harvesting is also required for
these sensors. The energy harvesting market is well positioned for accelerated
growth over the next few years.
Market Forecast 2012 - 2017 (Frost and Sullivan, 2012)
The
worldwide energy harvesting sensor node unit market is projected to grow from
42.5 million units in 2012 to 375.2 million units in 2017, at a compounded
annual growth rate (CAGR) of 54.6%. Applications are seen in Building
Automation, Home Automation, Automotive, Environmental Monitoring, Medical,
Industrial Processes, Aerospace, etc. Each of these applications is expected to
see slow growth in the early years, followed by much faster growth later in the forecast period.
Driven
by growth in the large building automation sector and the strong influence of
the alternative energy industry, the fastest growing unit market will be the
European region, which is expected to increase at a CAGR of 61.3% over
the forecast period.
The
largest regional market over the forecast period will be North America, which
will make up over 53.0% of the energy harvesting node unit market in 2012. Although
energy harvesting is often described as a “battery-less” technology, in
reality, there is a need to store excess energy for later use. Rechargeable
batteries are seen as a concurrent and critical market with energy harvesting
solutions.